Part II Building Transformational Competencies
Chapter 6: Releasing the Power of the Many
The modern leader is often faced with too many things to achieve and too few resources to achieve them. In such circumstances, the key challenge is: how do we increase the bang for the buck? What can the leader do to ensure that where it matters most we get the maximum impact from the resources we deploy?
The Transactional Leader may approach this problem through a combination of focus and control, limiting the scope of the activities through unambiguous specifications, backed up by tight work packages and structured individual objectives. Progress against predetermined targets would be rigorously monitored and achievement of individual targets rewarded. The Transactional Leader knows what to do and how best to do it, and will muster and deploy resources accordingly. This invariably leads to a reduction in individual autonomy, coupled with more centralised and short-term-focused decision making. Such strategies can work well when activities are well understood and not subject to significant variation; these are tactics for the production environment. Where success depends upon flexibility, nimbleness and innovation, such control-focused tactics can rapidly lead to a workforce that is unwilling, or unable, to think or act outside the immediate needs of the task at hand. The result is that we just keep doing more of the same, getting the same results and failing to see, or respond to, new opportunities, or even to our customers’
needs.
6: Releasing the Power of the Many
By contrast, the Transformational Leader will respond to the need for efficiency in production-type tasks, whilst at the same time creating an environment that liberates their team members, giving them the freedom to solve problems innovatively and make decisions that are congruent with the overall aims of the business.
Learning to see anew
We saw earlier how our mental models of cause and effect are so ingrained that we just assume that some things are inviolable, we unquestioningly accept the wisdom of what we see as eternal truths. The Transformational Leader must first and foremost learn to question those things that we just know to be fact.
For example, let’s look at what we know about reward systems. We know that if you incentivise people with extrinsic rewards (pay them for performance), they will perform more efficiently and effectively. Yet repeated experiments have shown that such extrinsic rewards only produce improved performance where the task is well understood and can be completed using existing skills and knowledge. When faced with new and novel problems, ones that require thinking ‘out of the box’, extrinsic rewards tend to have a detrimental impact on performance, producing confused and sub-optimal performance. The reward encourages people to do what they have always done and they become channelled in their thinking and despondent when their efforts fail to produce new solutions.
It would appear, then, that tight management, reward and command and control may be counter-productive when performance is dependent upon innovative thinking, new
6: Releasing the Power of the Many
ideas and new ways of working. We are limited by what we know; being so sure about what we know closes our minds to the possibility of knowing something new.
What we need is a motivational framework that stimulates new thinking, rather than channelling it repeatedly into well-trodden courses of action. The future health of our organisations rests on our ability to inspire our people to deploy all their talents to produce new products and services that delight our customers.
Our challenge, then, is: how do we create an environment where our team members have the desire to think and be different, the latitude to take responsible action, and the understanding to ensure that their actions are congruent with our overall aims and therefore collectively contribute?
Table 5 gives a high-level view of the change in leadership mindset that is required. In broad terms, the change is from the leader as a controller of action, to the leader as the shaper of the environment within which action can develop.
Approach to structure and organisation
From To
1 Favouring command and control Favouring networked organisations
2 Favouring well-defined role definitions Favouring self-organising teams
3 Solving problems by involving a few
trusted individuals Solving problems through involving all stakeholders
Table 5: Transformational Leadership – change of emphasis
6: Releasing the Power of the Many
A framework for shaping the environment
As managers we are used to focusing directly upon people and their immediate actions as the means to improving performance. What we are suggesting is that you will get far greater leverage by focusing on the sustaining environment within which the people operate. To help you better understand where to direct your actions, we suggest that you focus on ACCESS:
A = Alignment C = Congruence C = Co-creation
E = Engaged stakeholders S = Shared responsibility S = Self-selection.
This simple mnemonic acts as a good guide to the range and nature of the Transformational Leader’s action. We will look at each of these in turn and suggest things you can do to stimulate change in each of these areas.
Alignment
Leaders worry that giving people too much autonomy will produce un-coordinated and potentially conflicting actions.
To counter this, they carefully prescribe levels of devolved authority, and seek to limit the range of decisions that can be made without appeal to higher authority for approval.
The problem is that such rules can only hope to cover situations which are already well understood. Yet devolved decision making is arguably most effective when the situation is new and no precedent for action exists. Under
6: Releasing the Power of the Many
these circumstances, it is essential not only that people have access to the relevant information needed to support the decision to be made, but also, more importantly, that they understand the context in which action is to be taken.
We saw earlier how our mental model acts as a filter for information and how we tend to focus only on those signals that support our view of how the world works. Each of us has a subtly different model and a different view of priorities and consequences. For effective decision making in a devolved environment, the leader must take action to align the mental models of the team. This deep-seated alignment requires more than a comprehensive set of operating instructions and it is certainly very much more than simply parroting a catchy vision statement or mantra.
Mental models are formed over time through a deep enculturation process, so it follows that any attempt to align mental models must focus heavily on collective sense making. Alignment only happens through a process of socialisation; people working together, solving problems together, making sense of the world together.
Assess
Do
Get
Build new understanding together
• Action learning
• Communities of Practice
Learn to see the unexpected
• Simulations
• Scenario planning
Techniques to promote Alignment
See
Figure 5: Aligning mindsets
6: Releasing the Power of the Many
When the leader works on Alignment, the emphasis has to be on actions that address how people See and Assess. Of the two, seeing is at the deepest cognitive level and it is often easier and, in the short term, more effective, to work first on trying to align the Assess function. The process of Assessing is essentially about deploying problem-solving techniques and frames of reference that we found have worked in similar circumstances in the past.
Steps to help with the alignment of the assess function To help people align the way they assess situations and actions, the leader should therefore seek to put people together to focus on operational problems that are important to resolve, but do not submit to standard remedies. Ideally, the problems should be familiar in nature but perplexing in resolution. This sort of enquiry has become known as action learning, and is gaining significant popularity in organisations.
With regard to action learning, the leader’s role is to define the problem, provide information and access, listen uncritically to the new knowledge that is created from the process, provide resources to deploy, and leverage worthwhile solutions that emerge from the process. A typical action-learning group will go through the following steps:
1 Work as a small group (four to eight people) on a real work-related problem that needs a resolution
2 Question what is happening and why it is happening 3 Challenge conventional wisdom about cause and effect 4 Explore new relationships and ways of understanding the
situation
6: Releasing the Power of the Many 5 Suggest potential solutions
6 Reflect upon what they have learned as a group and on the process of learning
7 Share insights and experience widely with fellow practitioners
8 Create new levels of practice.
Action learning helps people both to understand challenging problems and, perhaps more importantly, to understand how others see problems and why they take the actions that they do. As such, action learning is a highly effective tool for aligning the way groups of people assess situations. It is therefore a core building block of new levels of professional practice. The process tends to work best when supported by an experienced coach who can guide the participants through the steps outlined above. The role of the coach is very different to that of the leader. The coach is primarily concerned with the process of learning and encouraging the participants to break down the barriers that stop them learning. By contrast, the leader is focused on aligned action and the commercial exploitation of the new knowledge created.
In action learning, the leader’s role is one of questioning rather than telling, of listening rather than commanding, of providing enabling resources rather than structuring action.
As new understanding and practice emerges, communities of practice can also play a vital role in sharing and disseminating practice into the organisation and the wider industry.
6: Releasing the Power of the Many
Steps to align the seeing function
Deeper alignment relies on helping people to See or perceive differently. The emphasis is on helping people to pay attention to stimuli that would otherwise go unnoticed.
Essentially, there are two ways of shaking up the way we see.
1 We can use ‘what-if’-style management simulations to allow people to experience situations that otherwise would be too costly, time-consuming or dangerous to contemplate.
2 We can pose challenging questions that fly in the face of conventional wisdom. This is the technique that underpins scenario planning, making managers think the unthinkable and devise ways of dealing with it.
To help achieve alignment of thought process, the leader should work on providing key personnel with opportunities to engage in both action learning and scenario planning around challenging organisational issues. Aligning thinking is a precursor to aligning action; interventions at this deeper cognitive level will produce longer-lasting and more effective results than concentrating on observable behaviours.
Congruence
Only a small part of communication rests in the actual words we speak; a very large part of meaning is construed through the way we say the words, our body language, and the context in which we receive the message. In addition, our strong mental models tend to make us blind to certain possibilities, and therefore we unknowingly engage in biased listening. Whenever we interpret information, we
6: Releasing the Power of the Many
subconsciously access three filters based upon how we feel about the content, the information source and situation (or context) in which we receive the information.
In terms of content, we tend to place weight based upon factors such as:
· emotional appeal
· visual and aural appeal
· uniqueness
· brevity.
When assessing a source, we are most likely to look towards what we know of, or how we feel about, the sender. In doing so we are making judgements about factors such as their:
· perceived expertise
· power and/or influence
· personal appeal or charisma
· objectivity
· impartiality.
Finally, the situation we find ourselves in also impacts how we perceive the message; here we are concerned with such matters as:
· the perceived consequences, both personal and for our community
· expectation
· individual or group setting (we like to receive some messages personally and privately)
· our personal comfort level (how what is being suggested chimes with our personal value set).
6: Releasing the Power of the Many
All of the above are assessed instantly and subconsciously, and this, when combined with biased listening and our predisposition to ignore certain signs, makes communication a hazardous activity. We need to add to all this that, even when a message does get through intact, everything can be undone if the communicator’s actions are seen to be at odds with their own message. We therefore place great emphasis on the need for Congruence.
To be congruent is defined as: ‘to be in agreement or harmony’. It is essential that our actions and our words are seen to be in harmony, to be congruent. This is always important, but particularly so when our message is about change and has a strong emotional impact. The Transformational Leader needs to be conscious of the impact of their own behaviour and actions in communicating; the leader must strive to ensure that their words and actions are congruent in nature, also that the course of action they are proposing is congruent with the espoused strategy and journey that has been set out in previous communications. Where multiple change initiatives are under way at the same time, we should seek to show how they are complementary and mutually supportive of the achievement of a desired outcome.
Co-creation
The idea of co-creation has been around for some time in the world of product development and R&D. Indeed, there are classic examples of co-creation, such as:
• open-source software, particularly Linux
• Lego’s® Mindstorms – robotic kits where the user community has hacked the firmware and software to
6: Releasing the Power of the Many
achieve capabilities far beyond the original scope of operation.
Such developments are often termed external or open innovation. The fundamental premise is that, at any given time, the person who is best qualified to solve your problem probably doesn’t work for you, and maybe isn’t even in your industry. One of the challenges of open innovation is therefore to find ways of gaining access to shared resources from anywhere at any time. In new product development, co-creation efforts often focus on enlisting customers to work together with internal design teams to improve the product and the brand for the benefit of all customers. This is not about engaging the altruistic few but rather about tapping a broad wellspring of talent. Customers are willing to engage in co-creation efforts because:
· they want to work with brands they know and trust
· they like to be listened to
· they enjoy the challenge of solving problems.
The solution that eludes you may be a really simple step for someone else who thinks and sees things differently, someone who makes different connections
Yet co-creation is not just about product design – we should think about the principles and process of co-creation in relation to the way we construct internal processes and policies, the way we engage with our stakeholders to build new services and deliver benefit, and the way we engage with our peers to create new knowledge and understanding.
When a leader heads down the road of co-creation he/she needs to let go of some old certainties. First and foremost, co-creation depends for its existence on the ability to self-organise. The leader must trust the process, work to remove
6: Releasing the Power of the Many
obstacles and balance the benefits of providing wide access to data and information that might otherwise have been commercially sensitive. Here are three things that we recommend the leader to focus attention on:
1 Inspire participation. Seek to provide an ‘igniting purpose’ – set a challenge or pose a question or task that would, if solved, produce a breakthrough level of service.
2 Connect creative minds. Remove barriers of access, especially to information. Seek relationships in similar industries and in universities. Look for examples in unexpected places. Don’t be tempted to try to exploit apparently good ideas too soon; allow the wisdom of crowds to show you where the gold nuggets lie. Follow where great minds go rather than trying to anticipate and point to where you think they should go.
3 Share results widely. When you get a winning idea, feed it back into the community so that people can reap the benefits of being early adopters and can help you both to build brand and to drive future enhancements.
Co-creation is an essential tool for the future-focused leader with an eye to increasing innovation. It helps us deal with the primary challenge of how we access the right resource when we need it for as long as we need it, and how we increase the leverage of our internal resources.
Engaged stakeholders
Stakeholder engagement, when done, is often viewed as a one-shot activity, usually at the start of a project or initiative. We strongly suggest that stakeholder engagement should be a deep and ongoing process. We have already
6: Releasing the Power of the Many
seen that building relationships takes time and sustained effort; this is as true for business stakeholders as it is for personal contacts. The key components of a good stakeholder engagement strategy are:
1 clarity about desired outcomes
2 rigorous stakeholder identification and analysis 3 open information disclosure
4 continuous consultation
5 partner management and negotiation 6 feedback on progress and issue resolution.
Good stakeholder identification is essential. It is always a good plan to make a list of stakeholders and then plot them on a relationship map. We suggest that you put the issue or project at the centre of the map and show your own relation to the issue, and then map all the other known stakeholders.
For simplicity, in our illustration below (Figure 6) we have shown them as Groups A to D. We also recommend that you indicate the strength and nature of the relationship by the density of the line joining the groups. A dotted line indicates a very tenuous relationship whereas a thick pipe indicates a long-term trust-based personal relationship.
Finally, it is important to recognise that stakeholder groups talk to each other; how they feel about an initiative may be impacted more by what they hear from other stakeholder groups than by what they hear or see from you. Try to estimate the nature of the connections between various stakeholder groupings and also plot these on your
Finally, it is important to recognise that stakeholder groups talk to each other; how they feel about an initiative may be impacted more by what they hear from other stakeholder groups than by what they hear or see from you. Try to estimate the nature of the connections between various stakeholder groupings and also plot these on your